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by SeaDeepBones



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: All the Paladins are homesick to hell and back, Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-04
Updated: 2016-08-04
Packaged: 2018-07-29 07:55:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7676377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeaDeepBones/pseuds/SeaDeepBones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Yellow Lion's pilot is caring and kind. As the leg of Voltron, he must lift the team up and hold them together.</p>
            </blockquote>





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**Author's Note:**

> :'D Please note this fic is unedited at this current point in time. This is the first piece of writing I've done in literal years and I have no idea what caused me to do it, but I figured I might as well post it and come back to edit it later before I lose my nerve.

The Paladins turned to stone. Each movement, each breath they took seemed to grow shallower, slower - stale. They walked and talked like the dead - ghosts of themselves merely going through the motions as they had done when they were alive - and the Castle of Lions was their tomb.

Hunk was the first to understand it - the first to recognize something had to be done. He cursed his over sympathetic nature. He had to do it for his friends, but he could hardly muster up the energy to do so - after all, his heart was petrifying too.

He left a note under Shiro's door. As for Allura, Hunk managed to catch her in passing and, in hushed tones, gave her the same place and time he'd given Shiro. She stared at his retreating form, until it turned to a silhouette, then dissipated in the long corridor.

Amidst the haze of worry and uncertainty, she vaguely noted to herself that she needed to fix the lights in this part of the castle. 

\- - -

Allura had already been there for hours, and Shiro had come exactly on time. As far as they knew, everyone else was fast asleep in their rooms. The two occasionally tried to make light conversation, unsure if the other was supposed to be there as well, but it always melted into a tense silence. Eventually, they stopped trying, and stared at everything but each other, until their eyes snapped to the opening door of the control room, and in came Hunk. 

He was a couple minutes late, and while Shiro and Allura noticed, they said nothing. They stared at him, and he stared back. He was sweating, pulling at his fingerless gloves and averting his eyes.

Eventually, Allura became tired of waiting. "Are you alright, Hunk? What requires a hushed meeting in the middle of our sleeping hours away from the other Paladins?"

Shiro stayed silent, arms crossed and back against the glass separating him from the void of space. Hunk let his arms and gaze drop, his fists clenching and unclenching.

After a pause, he look up at them and started fast, almost incomprehensible, "I-I had to talk to the both if you - just the both of you first because I know this could get out of hand and cause a lot of trouble if I blurt it out so I wanted to at least do damage control by talking to you two since you're the leaders and you're more capableofmakingthisdecisionthanIam-"

"Hunk, slow down-"

"No, Shiro, listen-" Hunk finally took a second to inhale, then slowly breathed out his words. "We need to go home - to Earth, I mean."

Shiro and Allura's eyes met, exchanging information at 1000 mph. Their eyes flickered back to Hunk. Shiro started, "Look, Hunk, you know we went through this with Pidge. Like I told her, if you want to leave, we won't stop you, but-"

"That isn't it!" The leaders stared wide-eyed at Hunk as he heaved with clenched fists and a raised voice. "That isn't it! I don't want to leave the Paladins. I want to stay with you guys, but here's the problem. Staying here is killing us."

Without pause, he continued, "Keith spends every hour of every day training. He doesn't stop and he even sleeps in the training room sometimes. He hardly pays attention to any of his injuries. Why do you think we always walk into the dining room together? It's because I have to drag him out of there otherwise he wouldn't eat anything!

Pidge is exactly the same, except she spends her time analyzing and upgrading every piece of technology in sight. She sleeps maybe one to two hours and she tries to cover up the fact that she's getting migraines all the time, but I can see it! In the middle of the night, with her glasses all lit up by the screen, you can see her just staring at the photo of her and her brother.

Lance is running himself ragged thinking about his family. He doesn't know what to do with himself for most of the day when we aren't out fighting Zarkon or training altogether. He paces the hallways muttering to himself when he thinks no one is looking - he does that for hours until he gives in and searches for one of us so his loneliness doesn't swallow him whole."

He turned to Shiro, nails digging into his gloved palms and tears dangerously close to falling, "And you, Shiro. Unless we're about to go on a mission, you spend your days locked up in your room. The only times you come out are when you need to eat or when something important needs to be done, but don't think I don't see the bags under your eyes. Don't think I don't see how red and battered your- your flesh knuckle is sometimes."

Hunk swallowed thickly as the tears rolled down his face. Shiro stared at the ground, gnawing at his lip, prosthetic hand clenching and unclenching. Allura's eyes flickered between the two of them, clearly trying to put together the pieces and make some sense of this.

The void outside was the same as ever - huge, all-encompassing, and dark. It almost seemed hostile, and, a lot of the time, it was. It was strange to think that at the very moment only a thin layer of glass - glass? Did the Alteans have glass or was this something different? - separated them from the shadowy beast that was the vacuum of space.

Allura pursed her lips, concern knitting her brows. Softly, she said, "...And what about you, Hunk?" Shiro looked up at Hunk, face nigh unreadable save for a glint of lingering hurt.

Hunk blinked, wiping at his eyes so he could attempt to compose himself and form a coherent sentence. "I-" He sniffed and averted his gaze. "I worry. That's all I do."

The Altean Princess stood unmoving, eyes shining like water reflecting over a shallow sea, then she took one of Hunk's hands in both of hers. "...I've been selfish." She started, "I had thought about returning to Earth for your sakes - I had seen the toll this was taking on all of you - but I buried the thought in the back of my mind fearing we'd get there and you wouldn't want to leave."

She breathed, then she took Shiro's flesh hand as well - held both his and Hunk's hands in her own, staring down at them. "I've been horridly selfish, believing that if Coran and I could live with being the last of our kind, then you all could live with merely being away from Earth.

But there is no 'merely'. It is no small matter having suddenly been whisked away from your home, the most taxing job in the known universe placed upon your shoulders. It is no small matter not having gained closure with your families - not knowing whether they're sitting there clueless to whether you're alive or not. It is no small matter being in wildly different place, every nook and cranny unfamiliar and uncomfortable - I'd imagine even the dark, something so known to every race everywhere, seems different and foreign in a place like this. You have no hobbies anymore, nothing to keep you entertained or help you cope in these long hours - nothing to keep you grounded, let you feel like yourself and comfortable, other than the clothes on your back - the clothes you came with."

Allura bowed, gently touching the hands she still held to her forehead. "It is no small matter, and- and for that I am sorry."

Hunk and Shiro looked at each other, then at her. All three pairs of eyes were rimmed with red.

Shiro took his hand back as Allura rose and opened his arms, latching on to the other two. "Well," He said with a sedated grin, "I suppose this means we're taking a trip back home then aren't we?"

Allura smiled, freely letting her arms snake around the torsos of the two taller men and holding them close. "Of course. I've always wanted to see what this 'rain' of yours is like."

Hunk was the last to respond, but he put the most fervor into the hug and squeezed them both tightly, tears streaming down his face with renewed power, this time happier. "I - thank you guys. You have no idea how glad I am right now. ...Should we wake everybody up and tell them?"

"Yeah. Let them know we're going home."


End file.
